


Whisk Me Away

by breathewords



Series: Gold Rays: Bughead Summer 2018 [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Buggie Break, Camp Bughead, because summer is for happiness, core four road trip, in which i try not to be too angsty, lakehouse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 08:51:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15139520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathewords/pseuds/breathewords
Summary: "They load into Archie’s truck, fire up a playlist with a bizarre mix of songs including oldies, EDM, indie, and Archie’s greatest hits, and drive.As Riverdale disappears in the rearview mirror, Betty feels herself breathe for what feels like the first time ever."Written for day two of Camp Bughead: Waterfront.





	Whisk Me Away

Warm sand between her toes. Salt water clinging to her eyelashes. Sunburned cheeks. Frozen cappuccinos. Crashing waves. The smell of surfboard wax.

If Betty closes her eyes and concentrates hard enough, she can imagine all these things and more. That’s because every summer since she was in diapers, the Coopers rented the same beach house for the same three weeks in August, and Betty got to spend 21 days blissfully unwinding at the shore. She’d turn off her phone, ignore her responsibilities (having finished her summer reading already, anyway), burn through a huge stack of cheesy teenage romance novels, and shed the weight of her reputation in Riverdale, if only for a little while.

Evidently, that won’t be happening this summer. As if things haven’t changed enough already this year.

“I’m not renting the house this year, Betty,” Alice said gently over dinner one night. “It’s just… not in the cards.”

With Polly back at the farm, Hal behind bars, and “Chic” god knows where, the Cooper household had been more silent and eerie than ever. Betty can’t stand the ominous lack of noise, which her mother seems to be clinging to, so she’s spent much of the summer on the Southside with Jughead, acclimating to life in her new position by his side as he leads the Serpents. She lets the silence stretch on, carefully bundling up her emotions and sealing them in the “open later” box in the back of her mind. She’s jarred by the news that she won’t be back at the place she’s found rejuvenation and peace at least once a year, but she understands that with Hal out of the picture, Alice is shorter on funds, shorter on time, and shorter on capacity to consider the wants of her teenage daughter. Seeing that delivering the news was visibly hard for Alice only increases Betty’s sympathy for her mother.

So she swallows the feeling of dread that’s been with her for weeks, months, all year, really, and says, “It’s okay, Mom. I completely understand.”

Alice nods in relief. Betty clears the table and kisses her mom on the cheek before the revving of Jughead’s engine indicates he’s arrived to pick her up for a ride.

She spends the 10 minute ride to the outlook over Sweatwater River leaning into Jughead, breathing in his familiar scent of leather and pine and leaning around his shoulder to get the full force of the wind in her face. It’s refreshing. It’s exciting. She’s definitely come to enjoy her time spent on his motorcycle.

“So, my mom cancelled our beach trip for this summer,” she says as they climb off. She’s surprised when her voice cracks with emotion.

“Betts, I’m so sorry,” Jughead says.

“It’s just a stupid vacation. A luxury. I shouldn’t have expected it. She’s working overtime now that my dad’s in jail, and I probably shouldn’t abandon the Serpents for three weeks at the beach so soon after joining, anyway.”

“I think I can give you a couple extra vacation days,” Jughead jokes.

She smiles weakly.

“But really, Betty, it’s okay if you’re upset. I know how much that place means to you.”

“Yeah,” she shrugs.

“Hey, I’m serious about those vacation days, if you want them. I can’t promise three weeks, but what if we went away for a couple of days?”

“Where would we go, Jug?” she asks, not fully believing him.

“Well, I don’t know, I don’t have a beach house or anything, and as much as I’d like to, I don’t think I can afford to rent and ocean-front property or anything like that, but what if we found a Sharebnb by one of those lakes further upstate?”

She takes in his expression — sincere as hell, hand nervously rubbing the back of his neck, eyes searching hers.

“Wait, you’re serious?”

“Sure, why wouldn’t I be?”

“I have no idea.”

“Then it’s a plan.”

* * *

Veronica gets wind of their plan, and before either one of the can protest, she’s invited herself and Archie along.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asks Jughead one rainy afternoon, the four of them sitting in Archie’s bedroom, scouring the Internet for a reasonable vacation spot.

“Looking at Sharebnbs?”

“Well, look no further. A Veronica Lodge trip is all expenses paid.”

Betty and Jughead start protesting immediately.

“I owe you, after the… debacle that went down last time we went to the lake house. We’ll go somewhere else, obviously,” she adds.

“Didn’t your dad cut you off, Veronica?” Betty asks.

“Yeah, but my mom didn’t. She’d never let Daddy let me go hungry.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jughead says. “You shouldn’t have to pay for the whole thing out of pocket.”

“Why not? I can afford it. And I don’t want to stay at whatever beaten down, Thoreau-like cabin you’ll surely decide on.”

Eventually, they come to a compromise, wherein Veronica will rent them a big, expensive lake house for a week, and in exchange, Jughead will merely provide groceries. At this point, he knows how persuasive and hard-headed Veronica can be, and he considers them friends, but can’t get himself to accept her generosity without at least contributing something in return.

Two weeks later, they load into Archie’s truck, fire up a playlist with a bizarre mix of songs including oldies, EDM, indie, and Archie’s greatest hits, and drive.

As Riverdale disappears in the rearview mirror, Betty feels herself breathe for what feels like the first time ever.

* * *

“Who’s down for skinny dipping?” Veronica says later that night, already two large margaritas in.

Archie has his shirt off in record time, and chases her into the lake at the edge of the dock by their rented house, both of them shedding clothes as they go.

Betty laughs, and Jughead feels it rumble deep in his own chest. She’s seated between his legs in the hammock they share, pointing out fireflies as they light up the night sky.

Archie’s laughter and Veronica’s shrieks filter through the night air, and Betty closes her eyes as Jughead’s arms come around her.

“Thank you for this,” she says.

“I think it’s Veronica you should be thanking.”

“No, it was your idea. We wouldn’t have done it without you.”

“You deserve a weekend away. I just wish I could give it to you without Veronica’s financial assistance.”

“Juggie, please don’t apologize to me for not being about to afford a lakeside mansion.”

He signs and pulls her closer.

“I know.” He lets the silence engulf them for a minute. “Do you still think about running away? Us just getting on the bike and never looking back?”

“All the time,” she admits. “Riverdale is… so many bad things. And so many bad memories. I can’t walk past the soccer field by Pickens Park without thinking about how my dad used to cheer me on during games as a kid. I can’t go near Fox Forest and not see you bloody and unconscious. But it’s also full of good memories. You and me and Archie on the playground as kids. Cheer practice with Veronica. Us in a booth at Pop’s. Besides, we’ve still got another year of school.”

“We should just drop out,” he says, only half joking.

“My mom would crucify the both of us. As if she’s not already wincing every time she sees me in my Serpent jacket.”

She’s got it on now, and he runs his hands up and down the leather. Half the time, seeing her in it brings a smile to his face. The other half, it ties knots in his stomach and fills him with dread. He’s trying so hard not to keep her at arm’s length this time, but that doesn’t mean he’s not scared of the consequences of bringing her too close. For both of them. He’s filled with the self-destructive need to tell her she’s better off without him, to run far away and forget they ever met, forget they fell in love, forget all the times they saved one another from drowning, and all the times they didn’t.

“Archie’s got this fantasy,” he says instead. “That one day, we’ll all move to New York, and he and I will be roommates in the East Village, and you’ll live with Veronica on Park Avenue.”

“Sounds fun,” she says. “But if you want to whisk me away to New York, you’ll have to catch me first.”

“What?”

Then, she’s off his lap sending him tipping over in the hammock as she dashes toward the lake. He’s scrambling to his feet to catch her, and even though he’s not exactly a fan of freezing cold lake water, he’d follow her anywhere. The four of them splash in the lake until well past midnight, when Betty starts shivering and he insists on piggybacking her back inside.

When he lays her down on their bed and kisses his way down her body, he finds he doesn’t mind lake water so much, not when he’s licking it off her.

* * *

The next two days go by too quickly. They eat huge breakfasts and spend the days drinking sweat tea and swimming across the lake to go cliff jumping and playing with the neighbor’s dog and roasting marshmallows by a fire at night and it’s so fun and normal, exactly what summer should be like, and no one wants it to end.

So when Veronica suggests extending their trip a little longer, no one resists her generosity. Not even Jughead.

He spends Sunday switching off in the driver’s seat of the truck with Archie and Betty, and they keep the windows down until they cross the Hudson River and the sounds of New York City drown out their music.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time participating in a Buggie Break, so go easy :) 
> 
> I'm hoping to answer a few more prompts this month, which I'll likely post in series with this one. I've got one more written already that will be a direct follow-up to this one.
> 
> As always, thank you to everyone who leaves comments and kudos!


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